


Sunshower

by bombcollar



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Fun journeys into confronting your own mortality, Gen, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 07:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11481426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bombcollar/pseuds/bombcollar
Summary: Ciaran foils an assassination.





	Sunshower

**Author's Note:**

> gwyndolin/ciaran is criminally underrated as a pairing.

The day is hazy, warm and heavy air feeling utterly still even though Gwyndolin can see fat thunderheads forming in the distance. In spite of her light garments she’s the only one repeatedly filling her glass with icewater from the sweating pitcher, while Ciaran seems perfectly comfortable despite her dark, hooded trainee uniform. Gwyndolin creates shimmery little targets in the air for her to aim her throwing knives at, adding an occasional punctuating _thunk_ of steel into wood to the chorus of cicadas.

“Linny could you make me a target that’s a person?” she asks Gwyndolin. “I’m not going to be fighting orbs.”

“How do you know? Maybe you _will_ be fighting orbs one day,” Gwyndolin says matter-of-factly. “A good assassin’s got to be prepared for everything.”

Ciaran wrinkles her nose, taking careful aim at another orb. “You just don’t want to make a more complicated illusion.”

That was true, but Gwyndolin wasn’t going to allow her skills to be doubted. She huffs, putting her glass down as Ciaran smiles knowingly at her. “Alright, I’ll make you a person. Just hold on.” She’d gotten much better at creating walking, talking illusions that could fool anybody who didn’t look to close at them, but sustaining them was another matter. Too much concentration and she’d afflict herself with a migraine and be good for exactly nothing the rest of the day.

“Make it really good, this is my last knife.” Ciaran glances over the tops of the olive and fig trees, at the gathering storm. “…probably ought to go inside soon anyway.” She had to gather up her knives as well, or she’d be scolded by her teacher for letting the blade rust and the wood warp. As Gwyndolin shuts her eyes to focus, Ciaran watches the trees restlessly, knowing how tricky her friend was, how the target could come from anywhere.

There, to the right, she sees the branches shift in a way that the wind wasn’t blowing, and she hurls her knife with whiplike reflexes. It embeds itself in the target’s throat, and they collapse, finally fading into view as they clutch their throat and gurgle blood onto the tiles. A short, hooded figure in dark leather garb. Ciaran grins triumphantly, but she has little time to enjoy her victory, as only a moment later Gwyndolin screams.

She whirls around to face her friend, smile still half-stuck on her face. “What? I hit it-”

“I didn’t make that one!” Gwyndolin shrieks. “That wasn’t mine! That was real!”

Ciaran feels an icy coldness grip her heart as she realizes she may have just _killed_ somebody, a _real_ somebody, with real blood that was now oozing onto the ground, filling the spaces between the tiles in a geometric stream of dark red, a somebody that _should not have been there_. And where there was one, she knew there could be more. Ciaran jumps to her feet and grabs Gwyndolin under the arms, scooping her up and taking off in a sprint. “Ciaran, no, I can teleport-” Gwyndolin protests, but she knows she’s much too frazzled to aim accurately, and if the spell miscast they could both wind up tumbling into the river.

It’s not difficult to carry the little moon princess, her jewelry weighs more than she does, but the promised rain begins to fall, steam rising from the warm tile and making it slippery, and more than once Ciaran’s bare feet threaten to stumble. Gwyndolin’s frightened snakes nip at her clothing, sharp nails digging into her shoulders, but Ciaran holds her tight, racing down the narrow gardens paths and cutting through the groves to make herself hard to follow.  Shelter looms ahead, a small chapel for prayer and contemplating, too close to the main areas of patrol for any assassin to come near. Ciaran kneels inside, just out of sight behind the doors, still holding Gwyndolin as water streams from their clothes. The wind has shifted the clouds so that the rain catches the sunlight, golden and almost too bright to look at.

“I could have _died!_ ” Gwyndolin cries, her pale cheeks red, nose and eyes running inelegantly. “They wouldn’t be out there for any other reason, I should’ve paid attention…” She presses her face to Ciaran’s shoulder, sniffing and hiccupping, thin fingers fisted in the fabric of her friend’s tunic. Ciaran strokes her hair with trembling hands, her own heart hammering in her chest still. A young god like Gwyndolin probably hadn’t had cause to contemplate her own mortality up until this point. Ciaran had known for years that she would grow up to take the lives of many, that she aspired to deal death to the enemies of her lords, but until now it had all been wooden targets, stealth training… The wet sound of the knife going into the assassin’s throat, the horrible way they’d clawed at the air and writhed… You couldn’t get that except from the real thing.

Ciaran lays her forehead against Gwyndolin’s, tears gathering in her own eyes as the other girl looks up at her, the events of the past few minutes finally bearing down upon her. She knows Gwyndolin can’t see well, not with those eyes, but surely she can hear the quiet resolve in Ciaran’s voice. “We’ll both get better, we’ll both be smart and deadly and then _we’ll_ be the dangerous ones, and you won’t have to feel like you’re not safe ever again.”

That would be nice, Gwyndolin thought, to never feel threatened, to be the most dangerous thing in the land. She nods as she draws back, going to rest her head on Ciaran’s shoulder once more. She would be the serpent in the dark garden, the sword hanging by a thread, the uncertain threat, and Ciaran would be her blade. Together, they would keep each other safe.


End file.
